Kids audio guide stop for LaToya Ruby Frazier

NARRATOR: Take a look at LaToya Ruby Frazier’s photographs. Frazier takes pictures of her family and her community, Braddock, Pennsylvania. Braddock is a small town near Pittsburgh that was once prosperous, with a steel mill that employed many people. The mill is now closed. Today, Braddock has high rates of poverty and unemployment.

Here, the artist talks about taking pictures of her mother and grandmother.

LATOYARUBYFRAZIER: It’s interesting to make these self-portraits, because I’m not photographing us as three separate women, I’m photographing us as one entity, one person.

And so, I often feel like my grandmother is the image, in my mind, of the past. And my mother would become the image of the present, and that I would embody the image of the future. And for me, it’s about understanding who I need to be, or what I’m going to become. And so, how do I make these portraits and confront myself with these portraits to see or learn who I want to be in the future? It’s always that constant question.

NARRATOR: To hear Frazier talk about how important photography was to her when she was a kid, please tap the screen.